Urban Ladder raised Series ‘C’ funding from VC’s

Urban Ladder raised Series ‘B’ funding from VC’s like Steadview Capital and existing investors. The company offers curated range of over 4000 products across 35+ categories in furniture and home decor in 12 cities in India.

Urban Ladder aims to provider shoppers with a wide range of contemporary designs and high quality, handcrafted furniture that has blends beauty with functionality. The website provide seamless user interface and easy navigation provide the virtual show room experience.

At the same time the company provides dedicated customer care ensures customers have trouble free shopping experience and logistics team provides safe doorstep delivery and installation.

Bengaluru based Urban Ladder was founded in 2012 by Ashish Goel and Rajiv Srivatsa. Ashish Goel is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Urban Ladder. He is academically very well qualified. He has dual degree in Electrical Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 2002 and Post Graduation Diploma and Master of Business Administration from Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore in 2004.

He started his career as Summer Intern in Procter & Gamble in 2003 and joined as Engagement Manager in McKinsey & Company in 2004. He worked in McKinsey for 4 years and became Managing Director of India Book House in 2010. The company was leading distributor of books and magazines. He worked in India Book House for 4 years and founded Urban Ladder in 2012.

Rajiv Srivatsa is co founder of Urban Ladder. He has graduated in Bachelor of Technology in Naval Architecture Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 2000. Rajiv did his Masters in Business Administration in Systems, Marketing, Operations and Strategy in 2004. He secured gold medal for best all round student in the batch.

In 2000, he joined Infosys Technologies Ltd as Software Engineer and where he built one of the most popular personal websites across the entire Infosys. He worked for 25 months and moved to Cognizant Technology Solutions as Account Manager. Rajiv’s stint brought recognition from CEO at Cognizant for blog on company strategic initiatives. He had several roles in Cognizant ranging from Senior Business Analyst to Account Manager. He worked with the company for 3 years 10 months and joined Yahoo as Senior Product Manager.

In 2012 he joined Yahoo and donned several roles such as product manager to senior product manager. He had handled Yahoo India News, movies, Finance and other segment in the company. He credited in building several micro sites for major events such Elections of India in 2009, Wills Fashion and ICC Twenty20 World Cup and others. He worked in Yahoo for 4 years and co founded Urban Ladder for which he is Chief Operating Officer.

The company has received $27 million funding in various stage from 6 investors. Prominent investors among them are Kalaari Capital, Sequoia Capital, TR Capital, Steadview Capital and SAIF Partners. Tata Group Chairman Emeritus Ratan Tata has invested in Urban Ladder in his personal capacity.

Ashish Goel, Chief Executive Officer of Urban Ladder said after funding “Over the last 3 years, we have stayed sharply focused on our design thinking, product quality and customer experience. While these will continue to be important themes, geographical expansion will also be a key focus area this year. We will be present in 30 cities by the end of 2015.”

Rajiv Srivatsa, Chief Operating Officer of Urban Ladder said “As we grow, we want to build a team of smart people who are excited to be a part of a journey that will revolutionise the furniture industry globally. We aim to double our employee base in the next six months.”

Sequoia Capital India Advisors, Gautam Mago on the occasion of funding said “We are delighted to partner with Urban Ladder in their vision of making quality home products available online to millions of Indian consumers, and look forward to working with Ashish, Rajiv and the rest of the Urban Ladder team to help build an enduring business.”

Ravi Mehta, Managing Director of Steadview Capital said “Furniture is a highly fragmented and unorganised space, and we believe Urban Ladder is well positioned to leverage technology in order to become the leading furniture company in India. Their focus on customer experience and innovative product offerings stand out and we think very highly of the founders and the team they have built around them,”

The funding will be used in technology to introduce world class tech innovations in terms of design thinking, product quality and customer experience. Urban Ladder plans to expand to 30 cities by year end.

Online Furniture portal segment is witnessing lot of churn in terms of funding. Companies like Pepperfry.com raised funding recently. Urban Ladder has to compete with major online portals Flipkart, Snapdeal and Amazon to remain afloat.

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